The inaugural lecture was given by Pete Townshend in 2011, with Billy Bragg, Iggy Pop and Charlotte Church following in subsequent years.

Prior to the talk, the BBC claimed Eno would “show how cultural processes confer essential and important benefits on society”.

Eno has previously said that Peel “had a profound effect on my musical life and indeed my becoming a musician at all”. He added: “His career as a non-musician who altered the course of music has been an inspiration to me and forms the basis of this talk.”

Eno’s lecture took place during the Radio Academy’s Radio Festival at the British Library in London. The speech was broadcast on both BBC 6 Music and BBC Four.

During his speech, The Guardian reports that Eno said art and culture offered “a safe place for you to have quite extreme and rather dangerous feelings”. He said the reason people embraced it was because they knew they could “switch if off”, so art had a role as a “simulator” in people’s lives.

Eno said: “I think we need to rethink how we talk about culture, rethink what we think it does for us, and what it actually is. We have a complete confusion about that. It’s very interesting.”

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